Dumars out as team president of Detroit Pistons

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — The Detroit Pistons have decided not to renew Joe Dumars’ contract as president of basketball operations,
a person familiar with the situation said Sunday.

The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the team has not made any announcement on Dumars’ future, says Dumars
will remain with the Pistons as an adviser.

Dumars, a former McNeese State player,
was named the 2003 executive of the year and the Pistons won the title
the following
season, adding the 2004 crown to the two they won when Dumars was a
player. But Detroit hasn’t made the playoffs since 2009,
and the retooled Pistons flopped badly this season.

Detroit has one of the game’s top young big men in Andre Drummond, but he’s one of the franchise’s few bright spots at the
moment.

The Pistons now must hire a new general manager, and in the meantime, ownership executives Phil Norment and Bob Wentworth
are expected to supervise preparations for the draft and free agency.

Detroit signed Josh Smith and traded
for Brandon Jennings last offseason in what seemed like a return to
relevance, but the
new-look roster lacked cohesion at times. Coach Maurice Cheeks was
fired in February, and the Pistons are 29-52 with one game
remaining.

“I think overall we have a quality team as is,” forward Kyle Singler said. “I don’t know necessarily the formula to win, but
we just weren’t able to get into a groove earlier on in the year to gain confidence and know that we’re a playoff team.”

Now owner Tom Gores will try to find someone else to pull the team out of its doldrums.

Dumars began running the Pistons in 2000, and he made one shrewd move after another at first, acquiring Ben Wallace in a trade
for Grant Hill and sending Jerry Stackhouse to Washington for Richard Hamilton.

He brought Rasheed Wallace to Detroit in another trade and signed Chauncey Billups as a free agent. Even a draft-day blunder
in 2003 — picking Darko Milicic over Carmelo Anthony with the No. 2 pick — seemed like an aberration when the Pistons beat
the Los Angeles Lakers in the finals the following year.

That title, however, is well in the past. The Pistons have played in front of sparse crowds in recent years, struggling to
stay relevant in Detroit while the Tigers have drawn fans in droves to their downtown ballpark.

In 2008, Dumars traded Billups in a deal that brought Allen Iverson to the Pistons. That move didn’t work out, and neither
did the decision to sign Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva to big contracts during the 2009 offseason.

Once Gores took over after the 2010-11 season, the Pistons were undeniably in a rebuilding mode. Last offseason, Dumars had
another chance to show he could guide the franchise back to contention. Instead, the Pistons have been one of the league’s
most disappointing teams in 2013-14.